The Spiritual Brain

Publisher's Summary

Does religious experience come from God, or is it just the random firing of neurons in the brain? Drawing on brain research on Carmelite nuns that has attracted major media attention and provocative new research in near-death experiences, The Spiritual Brain proves that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. The authors make a convincing case for what many in science are loathe to consider: that it is God who creates our spiritual experiences, not the brain. Challenging the conclusions of such books as Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and Daniel C. Dennett's Breaking the Spell, this book will be of interest to listeners on both sides of a hot-button issue at the meeting place of science and faith.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful

interesting topic, but frustrating listen

This was an interesting topic, but often frustrating to listen to. The author includes many (too many?) quotations from other experts in the field. When reading the book, a quote is immediately obvious because it is indented. However, in the audiobook you don't realize you're hearing a quote until it's over and is attributed. This becomes very distracting because the quotes are long and will often argue against the author's thesis. The producers could have improved this by having a different narrator read the quotes, or by making the attribution before, instead of after the quote. I realize this sounds like a trivial complaint, but it was irritating enough to prompt me to write my first, and possibly only, review.

The authors discuss various research, including their own, on the brain and spiritual experiences, and in the process poke fun at modern theories that there is no mind and no free will. Most likely, neither science nor philosophy will ever settle the issue for good. However, the book is a good read, particularly for those who are skeptical of the viewpoint that all of our experiences are produced solely by chemical reactions and electrical activity in the brain.